In 1983, China submitted its application and became a contracting state for the Antarctic Treaty. The consultative parties of the treaty, which was brought into force in 1959, currently comprise the 12 original signatories and 14 other nations that have since signed on. All of the members of this exclusive club demonstrate their interest in Antarctica by carrying out substantial scientific activities there.

But before 1983, China hadn't carried out any independent scientific research and it was not qualified to be a full and acting member among the consultative parties. In September 1983, a Chinese delegation attended for the first time the 12th Congress of the Antarctic Treaty as a non-consultative party. That experience left participant Guo with a life-long memory. China was sidelined as a second-class member-when important decisions were to be made, the Chinese delegation, along with the other non-consultative parties, were shown out of the meeting room for a coffee break.

To the Antarctic

Things would not remain that way for long. On the morning of November 20, 1984, the country's first Antarctic expedition group prepared in Shanghai to set off for the South Pole with team leader Guo.

They accepted a brass plaque and a national flag from the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, then embarked on the journey to the icy pole aboard two salvaging and rescue ships.

During the next month, the team traveled through the tropics, temperate regions of the northern and southern hemispheres and the southern frigid seas. They passed through 13 time zones and finally landed in the frozen world of King George Island, setting the first Chinese boot on the mysterious Antarctic land.

The expedition's most important mission was to build the station. On the second day of their arrival, they held a groundbreaking ceremony for Changcheng Station. During the days and weeks that followed, they were forced to live inside their inflatable nylon tents.

"Building an Antarctic research station is not as simple as putting up a few houses. It's a complicated and systematic project, and it required 500 tons of materials transported from China to this remote land," said Guo.

The weather was not treating them well during the early construction days. According to Guo's logs, only eight of their 59 days in the Antarctic were clear, with the rest trying them with either rain or snow. The winds could gust to speeds stronger than a Level 12 typhoon. "The weather there was so unpredictable, the storms came and went so quick, and sometimes it continued for several days," said Guo.

Every team member turned into a construction worker during the five days and nights it took to build a 29-meter-long dock. The conditions were so unfavorable that the work took great feats of human labor, recalled one of the expedition members.

They also had to calculate the days precisely so they could head home before the onset of winter, otherwise the ships would be frozen in the icy water.

On February 14, 1985, the team set a new record by taking 45 days to build a permanent station in the shortest time. At the facility's inauguration ceremony, representatives from nearby foreign stations couldn't believe how quickly they did it. "Didn't you just arrive here one month ago?" one said.

On March 20, 1985, the World Meteorological Organization officially admitted China's Changcheng Station as one of the world's weather observatories. On October 7 of the same year, the country became an Antarctic Treaty consultative party during the organization's 13th congress and finally had the right to vote on Antarctic issues.

"Nobody took China as a big deal when it began making its own independent Antarctic expeditions. But as we began to achieve a series of accomplishments in ice sampling, geology structure studies and physical oceanography, people's opinions changed," said Liu Xiaohan, who has been involved in several Antarctic expeditions over the past 25 years.